Collaboration

This year the Stanford-Brown-RISD iGEM team worked with the Danish Technical University (DTU) overgrad team from the beginning. Both teams were inspired by the idea of mycotecture as funded by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program to our faculty advisor, Dr. Rothschild. With our expertise in applying synthetic biology to problems of space exploration and settlement, and DTUs particular expertise in filamentous fungal biotechnology, we worked together towards the goal of using synthetic biology enabled fungal mycelia as an material for space settlement. We shared protocols for growing the material and helped troubleshoot each other’s projects. Both teams agreed to frame the project around a mission to the Martian surface and with with advice from resident NASA experts, both teams worked to add suitable benefits to the material.

Modeling

Both teams possessed some expertise in modelling and decided to put it to use to create models which described different stages of the mycelium production. Working together, the goal was to have models which could inform future scientists that wish to use mycelium from the stage of a single spore all the way to building the final structure.
The DTU team created two models, one taking us from a single spore and modelling its hyphal growth and the second modelling what properties of mycelium would be necessary in a “brick” to make the final structure. Our team worked on a model which spanned the intermediate between the two, taking a large colony of fungus and modelling its growth into a mold from which bricks could be made. Further details on the two teams’ models can be found below.
Our teams met several times over video chat to compare and contrast our approaches to models. Key takeaways follow: